TOKYO: November 13, 2013 A Final Moleben is Performed by a Delegation of the Russian Church Abroad at St Alexander Podvorie of the Russian Orthodox Church in Japan

On Wednesday morning, November 13, 2013 , His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America, accompanying the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign,” visited St Alexander Nevsky podvorie of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tokyo. Protopriest Nikolai Katsyuban, the church rector, and members of the delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, performed a farewell moleben before the icon before its departure from Japan. Praying at the service were the nuns of the Convent of St Sophia, and the parishioners and worshipers of St Alexander Nevsky Church.

Protopriest Serafim Gan, Chancellor of the Synodal Administration of ROCOR and Secretary of the First Hierarch, addressed the worshipers and asked for their prayers for a safe journey by the delegation accompanying the main holy icon of the Russian diaspora, which was departing for the Primorsk Metropoliate in Russia. He expressed hope that all the pilgrims who approach the Kursk Icon with piety and faith would find consolation and heavenly aid. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Fr Serafim expressed the delegation’s deep gratitude toFr Nikolai and his colleagues in zealously organizing this visit by the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God to Japan, for their warm reception, attention and good will.

After bidding farewell to the clergymen, parishioners and nuns, the delegation left for Vladivostok.

On the eve of their departure, the members of the delegation visited St Nicholas Church in Tokyo, attached to the podvorie of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the foreign cemetery in Yokohama, where they commemorated the Russian Orthodox Christians buried there.